FINALLY shipping!
(after this devlog)

After likely losing a few hairs here and there (/j) after these 3 (almost 3 and 1/2) months, I deem minigolf to be done.

I’m kind of suprised myself that the project took so long. I believe that this, by far is the longest project I’ve ever made. During the process, I’ve learned A LOT more about studio and luau overall, which will definetly help make better games (with better implementations).

I have to admit, coming closer to the end there was a bit of burnout, but the result, in my opinion, was definetly worth it.

I also want to say thank you to everyone that has supported me and this project, it means a lot :)

Since the last devlog, I fixed and updated the few rough edges left in the game, GitHub repository and Stardance which are:

Stardance:
Making a new banner (old one didn’t even match the style of the game anymore)
Adding a demo link & github repository link

GitHub repository:
Made a README that, in my opinion, is nice. It follows the requirements that the shipping guide/README guide Stardance mentions (controls, images, demo link, features, etc)

Game:

• Changing the teleport screen to one that blends in during teleport
• Changed badges for new ones (icons) and requirements (now 1, 10 and 22 stages)
• Made the maze in stage 8 (grass map) harder to complete, was too easy before
• Changed all loading music
• Removed the funFacts moduleScript (not needed anymore)
• Stage 9 sign fixed to show status for Arcade_9 instead of Arcade_3
• Updated desertMap particles to be thinner
• Changed loadUI to have fake shadow text instead of a thick UIStroke

Desert map complete!

Well.. that was way faster compared to the other maps, which makes sense due to a desert.. well, being a desert.

Anyway, now that the main game is done*, I’ve also made thumbnails and an icon for the game. I still need to make a README and a proper description for the game, to ship, of course.

*Will likely rework the tutorial gui a bit and the ui shown when teleporting between maps

Anyway, look forward to seeing a few more updates soon, as the aforementioned updates/additions shouldn’t take a while

Started work on the “Desert” map. All stages are now built!

There are only 5 stages due to school taking most of my time, as usual. (and, there’s already 2 other maps in the game, so that’s that)

Arcade map complete!

New: the outside has now been fully finished (instead of just being a baseplate)
Smaller changes/additions: the arcade map now has seats, shapes on the floor and ambiance zones.

As the second map is done, I’m getting closer to (finally) shipping this project, and (hopefully) getting good enough reviews to get my goal from SD.

The “Desert” map will likely be a bit shorter compared to the arcade map (or even grass map, undecided.), as I don’t have that much time anymore due to school starting.

Arcade map update
The indoor area is close to being finished!
It still, of course needs a few things to be completed (for example, the food area, filling the empty space, etcetera.)

Next step is, of course, the outdoors!
I assume it shouldn’t take as long to make as the interior was, but who knows

Another thing the game still needs is ambiance zones. (and a new ambiance sound for the indoors, of course) I’m thinking of implementing this with just 2 parts for the indoors and outdoors, which should do the trick.

Every day this project is (hopefully) coming a bit closer to being shipped, but progress will slow down a bit due to school starting. In an ideal situation this’ll likely be shipped in a week, or atleast I hope to get it sort-of-ship ready by that time.

Useless, do not read!!

Testing..

Scrapped unless minigolf is finished before sd ends

Arcade Machines

They have interactable buttons (which do nothing, except move up and down)
Nothing else to say about them, really..

Changes/additions:

• Changed song2 (main menu) due to likely being made by AI (cover seems to be aigen)
• Light mode setting now also changes the main menu
• Changed buttonFrame in-game to have wrapper frames, in result being affected by the UIListLayout, and now they don’t clip together when using smaller screens, but they can still be animated.

Overhauled main menu GUI including new songs and animations!
Demo is in the attached video as usual!

So, I’ve spent a bit of time reworking the main menu, since the old one looked “temporary” instead of finished. In my opinion, the result seems to be pretty nice. I’ve made/added/reworked:

• Esentially every menu
• New animations when moving pages or when going in-game
• Added hover effects for buttons
• Icons for the main buttons
• Added fake shadows to text instead of the bad-looking UIStroke like before
• Added image backgrounds
• Replaced (most) old songs! (song 1, song 3-5)

It still isn’t fully finished, as I need to implement a light mode for it, but otherwise it’s fully functional!

When light mode for the main menu and (maybe) loadUI is done, the focus will likely shift back to building the arcade map.

Every time I test the game I somehow find bugs on accident, whoops!
Anyway, there were a “few” fixes/updates that were made during development of this overhaul:

• Fixed spinnyCamera (script) to not repeat points
• Updated generateNumber for spinnyCamera (script) to go through all the points instead of randomly pick one and look repetitive
• Fixed autosaveUI appearing in the main menu
• Fixed hideUIHotkey setting (a lot of things which I won’t describe as this post isn’t meant to be a wall of text)
• Fixed mainMenuButton UIScale bug by resetting UIScale on click
• Updated both cameraFolder(s) to be models instead of folders, with ModelStreamingMode to be set to Atomic (fixes delay or infinite yielding on slower devices)
• Updated mainMenuUI image background transparency to 0.5 for settingsFrame, cameraModeFrame and creditsFrame
• Updated hideHotkey setting textColor3 when text is “Set Keybind” and added UIPadding to the button for text not to clip
• Fixed soundLogic volume bug that didn’t reset audio volume when going back to the main menu, in result making the song silent
• Updated soundLogic to fade in song volume instead of immediately start playing it at full volume
• And a lot more… (these are just ones found after the overhaul)

New camera mode for the main menu!
Demo is in the video!

Before remaking/overhauling the main menu UI into light/dark mode (and, to look nice, of course), I’ve decided to rework the camera as it’s a bit of a weak point in the menu.

It features:

• Camera sway
• Camera switching between points
• 15 different points for the camera

Now, this has also reminded me that the main menu needs a little bit different of a song selection, as drum and bass for a gentle camera sway obviously doesn’t work.

Miscellanous changes/fixes:

• Flying trees fixed
• statsGui (naming fix soonTM) bgcolor and background transparency changed in light mode to that of the old UI.

In-game UI revamp is complete! *and a few miscellaneous fixes have been made

The settings menu has been revamped to add the light mode setting, now featuring page 1 and 2, and a few other settings which are currently in progress of being made.
In my opinion, light mode looks decent but I still prefer dark mode.

A new setting that is still a bit of a work in progress, but mostly finished is a hide UI hotkey, which as the name states, hides ui (in-game only). I still need to implement that the setting saves, but overall it works just fine. It’s made to only apply a keybind if you’re playing on PC, though.

Fixes:

• autosaveUI loading/saving icon was still spinning when not visible. Fixed by seeing if the frame is actually visible (instead of if the frame exists, small typo)
• Shadow button now just changes immediately instead of waiting for the server to change the variable, now it just fires the remoteEvent only to save the setting
• autosaveUI UIstroke clipping fixed by changing it to apply inner instead of outer
• Tree sway intensity has been changed to be a bit lower, otherwise it’d look unnatural.
• Tree pivots fixed to be on the bottom for tree sway (this was a pain)

Tree pivot issues:

• Changing tree pivots manually always broke for some reason. It took a few hours to fix them, then when I dragged the trees down it reset them. Upon pressing undo the pivots were still reset, not like they were before.
• Then, I tried fixing them without dragging anything, and the next time I opened studio it reset again.
• I found that ctrl+l may work, but that didn’t work either.
• Had to end up cloning everything over again, which somehow has made the shadows more intense in the dense tree areas, even though nothing changed between the two. This was NOT fun
• When writing this devlog, I found out that the oak trees have decided to fly in the air, so that’s great

UI Revamp (W.I.P)

I’ve started reworking the main UI for the game because well.. the old one is to say the least - not good.

So far I’ve reworked basically everything in-game (except the tutorial, but it won’t be reworked anyway as it can only be seen one time)

I’ve also experimented a bit with hover tweens (button getting larger on hover) and sound effects, which have been implemented now.

Another thing I’ve experimented a bit with is viewport frames, which are now used in the shop to show golf balls and clubs/“sticks” spinning. I’d want to possibly implement a “Are you sure you want to buy (x) item for (x) amount” in the shop, but that’s not planned at the moment.

Things still unfinished that I want to complete (for UIs):

• Setting to enable/disable dark mode
• Light mode UI (as at the moment it’s dark mode only)

Sound changes:

• “song2” in the main menu has been replaced due to it being striked by Roblox (not sure why!)
• Sound in the tutorial UI before accepting/declining the tutorial has been changed (same issue)

Every stage in the Arcade (map) has been built!

The arcade now consists of 9 stages in total! New thing is that some are a bit more.. interactive, and a few are a bit difficult or tedious.. to say the least. (example of changing stages the attached video)

Now that the stages are done, the game is inching a bit closer to completion! Now, of course, there may be ~15 or more things to still complete in the roadmap , but any progress is great.

You may (or may not) be wondering how I made all of these in 4 hours. Well, I only have one explanation. I uhh… forgot to enable the plugin after making something else. Oops! (factory gambler prototype)

Anyway, during this time a few small misc changes have been done:
stageLogic (new script) has been added to well.. control the stages. (Stage 5, 7 and 9.)
Shop UI trail naming has been changed a little.
Blinking activity on stage signs has been removed.

Note: Video player in SD is bugged. You have to click on the devlog, then go and click on the video for it to play.

Hello again! I’ve started working on the arcade map, as the grass map is pretty much complete (just need to fix the ui a bit)

I’ve decided to rewrite the playSound script a bit to not be hardcoded and play a different sound (depending on what string is received from the remoteEvent) instead of creating a remoteEvent and a new script for each one
For example, now it can play either the golfhole sound or the sound for the ball disappearing in stage 2.

Also, for the new automated door, I’ve experimented a little with spatial-ish sound. Turns out it’s really easy (for what I need, atleast)

So far I’ve made a few things in-game and outlined a few ideas and a roadmap.

Currently built:

• First three stages (which are glow-in-the-dark!)
• mostly complete parking lot
• Front of the building (although unfinished)
• A road leading up to the parking lot with a small grass patch.
• Automated door

There may not be as much devlogs now, but the game is still in development!

Devlog 7

Additions:

• Grass map is now complete!
• Added lamp scenery to the stages, so you can actually complete them during the night
• Tutorial is complete with music!
• Shop UI now has shadows behind the buttons
• Added an invisible hitbox extension to the golfstick (mainly fixes issue, although still may need to switch to r6 due to animation packs)
• UI with stats (Cash, stages won) and sounds + cash counting up/down
• The tutorial now has animations for hitting the ball

Changes:

• Tutorial made more visually similar overall
• First tutorial animation changed to:
  • Move the golfstick not as far back/forward
  • Move the golfstick a bit faster when hitting the ball
• Tutorial second animation changed to:
  • Not rotate the golfstick as far (60 degrees instead of 90)

Fixes:

• Stats UI centering on screen

Before starting to work on the next map which is the Arcade, a few other settings will be added to the settings menu.
Music UI may also change.

Small update/Devlog 6

New additions:

• A tutorial has been added and is fully working! (still needs sounds but otherwise fully complete)
• Main menu disallows the player to join the Arcade and Desert map if they haven’t completed the tutorial yet.
• Map scenery is done! Only need the stages now
• A boost pad has been added (and a golf ball loop will be made!)
• Colorcorrectioneffect has been added to make the game brighter in terms of colors instead of dull.

Fixes:

• Trees were optimized a little in blender (the fir tree originally had 6.6k faces when I opened the file.. oof)
• Renderfidelity on leaf parts for trees was changed to automatic (otherwise the trees would look like twigs from far away)
• Lights turn off when daytime cycle setting gets turned off
• Daytime cycle script fixed to turn off after turning off the nighttime setting

Changes:

• Lighting from invisible walls on stages removed (will use lights that the player can see instead)
• Main menu UI has been changed to have shadows on the buttons.
• Main menu UI text also has a “manual” shadow on the “Choose your destination!” text
  UIStroke on stage signs is now a bit thicker (text is easier to read)

Need to add/fix:

• UI that shows your current leaderboard stats instead of the default one
• Arm swinging the golfstick when moving with it (will probably either switch to R6 or just make an invisible hitbox for the tool)

Note: Ignore the last map building update. The upload system completely broke for me. I can’t add an attachment to the devlog (so I can’t edit it) and deleting it just results in an error.

Map development update #2

I’ve developed the map and it’s outer scenery a lot , although I’m running into optimization regarding te trees. (haven’t worked on a lot of stages though, only added the 4th one)
Maybe the tree has a lot of vertices and I could somehow optimize it in blender? If so, that could be the main factor why the game ran better with less trees.

Sunrays, bloom and a shorter range detpth of field have been added

And a small experiment for a tutorial cutscene has been added too.

In the process of this “devlog” I’ve also lost 11h of work

Also, a new loading screen has been added and the one from TP has been fixed!

Map development update

I’ve been working on a few ideas recently and have been attempting to build something “decent”.
With a bit of trial and error so far I’ve made

• A tree
• And 3 stages
  🤞
  Perfect development pace, isn’t it?

Anyway, here are the images showing stages and the tree.

Small update/Devlog 5.5

I’ve been working on a few things for the game before starting to build the map and in result wanted to share these.

Changes:

• “New” spawnPad and clearBall models, both now display their cooldowns with text and colors (locally for the player)

• I’ve replaced the low quality music in the main menu and added a “few” more songs, instead of just 11 songs now the game has..
  87!

• Now the main menu is also controlled by one script only, instead of having one in each button (in result also making porting easier to the other places)

• Also, the side buttons have been redesigned!

  • Now they have a collapse menu button, and a button for returning to the main menu.
  • This is so that more of the screen is available for mobile players (and a bit of the screen on PC, too).
  • Returning to the main menu will be useful for example, if the player completes every stage in the Grass “destination”/Environment and wants to continue to the next one.

• Also the music UI has been fixed to work on 4K (didn’t properly implement scale on the buttons)

• And, a very special thing in my opinion is that the shop is finally complete! Consisting of golf balls, trails, effects and different golf clubs (for a visual representation, go to the video after reading this post)

  • The Golf club preview image on the tool changes per the equipped cosmetic too!